dVerse OLN–a Whale of a Time

Image: BBC

Today, I’m linking a previously posted poem, one that I wrote using homonyms in the Sestina prompt, for dVerse OLN. It was the last, end-hour poem to go up. I am giving it a quick facelift. Coincidently, it is about whales. Thank you, Lillian, for sharing Provincetown with us–reminding me of my favorite, now-deceased poet, Mary Oliver.

A Mother Mourns
A Sestina

I saw her in the early hours’ mist,
just before sun broke through, heralding morn.
I heard a sound—perhaps a cry, a wail—
featuring pain that could not be missed.
An empty call of someone who must mourn,
a loss as deep as human, a grieving whale.

Who would expect such distress from a whale,
echoing slowly as though held back by the mist?
She shared her sorrow with me and I, too, began to mourn
the babe she held aloft in this quiet morn.
I thought of death—the one I loved and missed.
In silence I stood and listened to her wail.

Once again, I heard her, another wail—
the splendor of this creature, of this whale—
a mother’s angst that could not be missed,
so haunting in this atmospheric mist.
I’d awaited this day, a glorious morn,
but even breaking waves sprayed tears, as if to mourn.

She writhed in billowing whitecaps, her body seemed to mourn.
Above, a seagull cawed, squawked its own wail,
its flight toward the sun, toward dawning morn.
Below, a stillness shrouded mother whale,
in blue green seas, in dispersing mist.
Again a deep cry that I could not have missed.

I, too, have lost a child whose love I’ve missed.
Oh how I keen, and still I mourn
as I watch myself disappear into the mist
leaving behind my memories in an agonizing wail.
I think we are one—my spirit and the whale
as we both weep tears in this early morn.

As day moves on and leaves behind the morn,
we can’t stay fixed on what we have missed.
I bid goodbye to my mother whale
to face the present, so as not to mourn.
Then in a distance, I hear her–another wail
I carry it with me beyond the mist.

I’ll not forget mother whale who I met this morn.
Another day, in morning mist, I’ll think of all we both missed,
and learn how to mourn in a soundless wail.